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The Alphabet and the Ligature System (Beginners' lesson)
The Jesenic alphabet (dig Jèsch Alfabát) ''and ligature system are discussed in basic detail here. However, this lesson seeks to break down these topics in even greater detail as to give the learner a bigger sense of what they are getting into. ''Note: for those interested, we're soon adding IPA to this section so you're able to get a better understanding of the sounds these letters represent. Stay tuned... The Jesenic alphabet The Jesenic alphabet is broken into two major parts, the letters and sub-letters, of which the letters are the more numerous. The total of letters is 29 in all, with 3 of them being ligatures. This leads to the inevitable need to discuss the ligature system and its inner workings, but this will understandably be done later; we need to discuss the various characters you'll face before you're shown how the ligature rules work. Letters A *Letter **Vowel The letter a'' in Jesenic makes the sound ''ah, ''also occasionally making the sound ''uh. Æ *Letter **Vowel ***Ligature The letter and ligature æ'', or "ash," makes a variety of sounds. It primarily makes the vowel sounds in ''take and bite, ''as well as the first vowel sound found in ''render and effort; it secondarily makes the sound found in teeth. (There may be other sounds that need to be added to this list; add them when possible) B *Letter **Consonant The letter b ''only makes the sound (as in ''butter) associated with it in English. C *Letter **Consonant The letter c ''only makes the "hard c" sound (as in ''cat) associated with it in English. Usage of a C on its own is extremely rare, even in loanwords. Rather, the letter C often appears in the "ch" letter group which is much more widely used, especially in the middle and at the end of words. (The letter K is typically used at the beginning of words but can be used elsewhere.) D *Letter **Consonant The letter d ''only makes the sound (as in ''dog) associated with it in English. E *Letter **Vowel The letter e ''typically remains silent in most situations, except at the end of certain words; in those cases it typically makes the schwa ə sound (a very slight "uh" sound) but can be rendered silent in casual speech. F *Letter **Consonant The letter ''f ''only makes the sound (as in ''fin) associated with it in English. G *Letter **Consonant The letter g ''does make the hard sound (as in ''gourd) associated with it in English, but it does not produce the j-sound (as in juice). Many times, however, it will either produce a very subtle y-sound (the prefix gi-'', which indicates that a verb is intensified in importance, is a good example) or will be silent. The ligature system After careful review of the list of Jesenic characters in the alphabet, three probably stand out the most: æ, œ, and ᵫ, with ᵫ being the most odd of the bunch. It turns out that, in further review, ᵫ ''is in fact the oddest. We'll get to that momentarily. You are probably wondering what these three ligatures have in common, and why they're used in Jesenic spelling the way they are. The answer is that these three ligatures are part of a spelling system called the Jesenic "ligature system," which uses them to represent most vowel sounds except for a few of the harder-sounding vowel sounds. The ligature system exists simply out of necessity. It came about during the early time of modern Jesenic (after Joseph Flowers), when spelling variations were extremely rampant. One word could have a large variety of different ways to spell it, but with the ligature system, that number could be reduced to three possible portrayals, not spellings, of what is in essence (and according to the system's rules) the same spelling. All of that, however, is useless without actual application of said info. Therefore, we should move to practical examples of the system in action. In the last lesson, we went over the verb forkláre, meaning "to declare" or "to make distinct." This is a good place to begin a look at the ligature system because it's not only a verb with a ligature inside of it, but it's also got two other sometimes-used portrayals. The ligature inside the word is æ, but here it's rendered as an á''. How come this is the case? It's actually really simple--the "e" has been dropped from the original ligature. That's why the mark points forwards! If we used an accented e there, which we could even though it's much rarer in usage, the mark would point to the left because the ''a is dropped (so it would be è''). It's important to note that the original ligatures themselves are rarely written out. That would look incredibly odd and would be a turn-off to new learners! Typically, in other languages, accent marks specifically mark just accents, but in Jesenic, accent marks act sort of like a "rooftop directional apostrophe" to indicate that a letter has been dropped from the original ligature. In the early forming days of the system, writing actual apostrophes was normal to replace the missing letter. However, as time went on, a natural progression caused the apostrophes to move upward, which soon resulted in the adoption of the accent marks simply for aesthetic purposes. As briefly mentioned, this system did not exist prior to the 1904 extinction of the late English Jesenic dialect. Today, it is still used simply to give the language an odd but neat characteristic that makes it, well, ''different. Back to the verb'' forklère''. The forms of this word are forkláre, forklárend, forklárund, forkláring, and forklárt. All of these could be rendered with the accented e (è) as well: forklère, forklèrend, forklèrund, forklèring, forklèrt. In order, these forms are the present or infinitive form (minus the word ta meaning "to" before the word), present form (with a singular subject), continous form, gerund form, and the past form. Notice how the endings -''und'', -''ing'', and -''t'' all drop out the ending "e." This changes the pronunciation of the word. Originally, with the ending "e," the word would be pronounced along the lines of "fahrkleer," with more emphasis added to the "kleer" part because the prefix for-'' is not indicating the same meaning as the English prefix ''fore- (more on that in the lesson on prefixes and suffixes). Without the "e," however, the pronunciation changes to something more like "fahrklair." Here's a really great question: why does the ending "e" have anything to do with the ligature inside of the word or the sound it makes? That's a good one--let's answer it! One letter can change everything! Ok, well maybe not "everything." But one letter does cause all three ligatures to suddenly change their pronunciation--the letter "e." It’s such an important letter within the system that we often refer to it as the magic letter! The letter acts upon the first ligature in a word to change its pronunciation, as follows: *With æ: the original sound changes to an “ee” sound. *With œ: the original sound changes to an “oo” sound. *With ᵫ: the original sound changes to an umlauted u (“ü”) sound. This is relatively rare but sometimes does happen. It may look odd and difficult to begin with, but it's a system that works! You will eventually get used to this really well if you keep these rules in mind. There are a few other rules to go over, however. Other rules for the ligature system There are other rules that govern the behaviors of the ligature system as well. Jumping straight into it: what if you come across a word that has two ligatures and an e at the end? What about one with three or more? Here is the answer: *Ligature Application Rule #1: In a word with two or more ligatures within it that ends with an e, the first ligature is the ligature whose pronunciation is affected. There we go! The first ligature in the word gets its pronunciation changed in this case. What happens, however, if a base word ending in e suddenly has a new word or prefix attached before it, and this new word has a ligature within it? Would the ligature be affected by the base word's letter e? Let's see: *Ligature Application Rule #2: In a compound word where a prefix or a word is combined with a base word that ends with an e, any ligatures in the prefix or new word part will be unaffected. The existing e will only affect ligatures within the base. Still an early copy. Needs editing